American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2019 - 35

Among others accomplishments, published reports mention, S 47 reauthorizes
the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act through 2022. The legislation
establishes four new national monuments,
protects 1.3 million acres as wilderness
and protects nearly 620 miles of wild
and scenic rivers, reports add. It also
opens all federal lands to hunting, fishing
and recreational shooting, unless otherwise specified.
PIOGA notes that the House of Representatives passed HR 245 in 2016 and
again, unanimously, in 2017, but the
Senate never took it up.
The association explains that when
Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest
was formed in 1923, 90 percent of subsurface mineral rights remained in private
hands. "Despite being regulated successfully by the state for decades, a federal
law passed in 1992 required the U.S.
Forest Service to write new regulations
on oil and gas production in the ANF,"
PIOGA relates.
Several lawsuits have successfully
challenged the restrictions placed on oil
and gas activity by the Forest Service,
PIOGA says, including a moratorium on
drilling pending an environmental impact
assessment. "Thompson's bill, which is
consistent with the findings of the courts,
corrects federal law by repealing the improper 1992 requirement," PIOGA says.
Carbon Capture, Cybersecurity
The Utilizing Significant Emissions
with Innovative Technologies (USE IT)
Act was introduced in the Senate by Environment and Public Works Chairman
Barrasso along with Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse, D-R.I., and in the House by
Congressmen Scott Peters, D-Ca., and
David McKinley, R-W.V.
According to the Carbon Capture
Coalition, the identical bills would provide
$50 million in federal funding for researching and developing new uses for
captured carbon and would establish a
$35 million prize program for early-stage
research and demonstration of direct aircapture technologies that remove CO2
from the atmosphere.
The USE IT Act also would support
collaboration between federal, state, tribal
and nongovernmental interests to facilitate
planning and constructing pipeline systems
to transport captured CO2.
Senator Whitehouse points out that
he also cosponsored the Carbon Capture
Utilization and Storage Act, which was
included in the fiscal 2018 budget agreement passed by Congress and signed by
President Trump in February last year.

The Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage Act increased the Section 45Q federal
income tax credit from $20 a metric ton
for CO2 sequestered in secure geological
storage and $10 a tonne for CO2 utilized
in a qualified enhanced oil recovery
project to $50 and $35 a tonne, respectively
(AOGR, March 2018, pg. 28).
S 300, the Pipeline and LNG Facility
Cybersecurity Preparedness Act, would
require the secretary of energy to carry
out a program in consultation with federal
agencies, states and the energy sector to
ensure the security, resiliency, and survivability of natural gas and hazardous
liquids pipelines, and LNG facilities, according to an announcement from Senator
Cornyn's office. Among other provisions,
S 300 requires DOE to:
· Develop advanced cybersecurity
applications and technologies;
· Perform pilot demonstration projects; and
· Provide mechanisms to help the
energy sector evaluate, prioritize and improve physical and cybersecurity capabilities.
A companion bill, HR 370, has been
introduced in the House of Representatives
by Congressman Fred Upton, R-Mi.
Published reports note that authority
over pipeline security now largely resides
with the Transportation Security Administration, and the Industrial Energy Consumers of America worries that TSA has
only six full-time people assigned to
oversee more than 300,000 miles of
natural gas pipelines.
In a letter commending Cornyn for
introducing S 300, IECA urges the senator
to go even further by establishing "enforceable, nationwide natural gas pipeline
and LNG facility security standards."
Last summer, according to published
reports, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioners Neil Chatterjee and Richard
Glick wrote an op-ed encouraging Congress to vest responsibility for pipeline
security with "an agency that fully comprehends the energy sector and has sufficient resources to address (the threat
of cyberattack). DOE could be an appropriate choice."
NOPEC And Exploration Bans
The No Oil Producing and Exporting
Cartels (NOPEC) bills were pending in
mid-February in the House and Senate
Judiciary committees.
In a statement praising HR 948 during
a markup session, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., explains that
NOPEC would add a section to the Sherman Antitrust Act to make it illegal for

any foreign state to act collectively with
others to limit production, fix prices or
otherwise restrain trade with respect to
oil, natural gas or other petroleum products.
The bill also creates an exemption
under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities
Act to allow litigation against foreign
countries engaged in price fixing and
other anti-competitive activities, Nadler
says, and clarifies that the "act of state"
doctrine, which generally disfavors judicial
review of certain actions by foreign governments, does not prevent courts from
deciding antitrust cases brought against
OPEC governments under NOPEC.
Nadler says a series of court decisions
have left U.S. antitrust enforcement powerless to address anti-competitive conduct
by OPEC, and adds, "NOPEC addresses
these decisions by expressly authorizing
the Justice Department to pursue antitrust
enforcement actions against OPEC members, should it choose to do so, and by
ensuring American courts have jurisdiction
to hear such cases."
The Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain
Protection Act would halt oil and gas exploration in ANWR by repealing a section
of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was
signed into law in December 2017, that
requires the Department of Interior to
conduct at least two lease sales within 10
years on the ANWR Coastal Plain, according to a statement from Congressman
Huffman's office.
Huffman accuses the Trump administration of "attempting to launch an allout drilling spree" and worries, "Time is
not on our side here: the Trump administration is in a hurry, so we need to immediately repeal this oil and gas giveaway
to ensure the Arctic Refuge's Coastal
Plain remains unspoiled."
Congressman Rutherford, meanwhile,
says the Atlantic Coastal Economies Protection Act responds to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
issuing five incidental harassment authorizations (IHAs) for seismic surveying
off the East Coast by prohibiting permit
applications for seismic testing from moving forward.
NOAA approved IHAs in December
for ION GeoVentures, TGS NOPEC Geophysical Co., WesternGeco LLC, CGG
and Spectrum Geo Inc. (AOGR, January
2019, pg. 18). The authorizations allow
the applicants to conduct two-dimensional
marine seismic surveys using air gun
arrays in the Atlantic Ocean between
Delaware and Central Florida, subject to
final permit approval by the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management.
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MARCH 2019 35
American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2019

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